Rust, Devouring the Earth! #3
It had been pure coincidence back then.
At the time I was a rising star who had only just begun to draw attention after founding the Blood Crusade. The Blood Crusade needed to make a name for itself if it ever hoped to claim a seat at the great assembly of heretics that would one day be called the Sabbat. The Wall of Sloth, held by the one known as the Great Sin Seat of Sloth, looked like the perfect prize.
We had extracted intelligence from captured witches that the witches themselves planned to sow discord and spark a rebellion inside the citadel—and we intended to exploit that opening. Of course the wall was far too solid, and our Blood Crusade slammed head-on into the forces of Walpurgis that already surrounded it. Without the solar eclipse that struck in the middle of that chaos, I might well have died right there.
The real problem, though, was not the eclipse. It was what came after.
I had tripped over a stone and fallen flat. The very next instant the earthquake began.
“Woooah! As the foremost Baptized, I can tell! Lord Rust has eaten the earth!”
“Lord Rust of Earth-Eating! I offer my everything to you!”
Yeah. That was the vibe.
An earthquake right after an eclipse. Pure chance the first time—but when it happens twice, it becomes destiny. And I was a being of destiny!
“You bitch! You act all high and mighty even though you love being trampled by people, you prickly little slut! Bitches like you only settle down once their holes are plugged shut! Now cry! Scream! And get pregnant!”
Slick, slick—.
I delivered punishment to the hateful, detestable earth. If the director had never fallen for that real-estate scam, the orphanage would never have been buried in debt. Even after the sponsorships dried up there would still have been some breathing room. I would never have had to write those filthy stories! Every last bit of it was the land’s fault!
“Look at that waist! I’ve never seen anyone thrust that fast!”
“Th-that must be Lord Rust’s true form… Even I, the Fifth Baptized, feel fear…! Everyone, look! That is the waist-work of a Demon King!”
Thrust, thrust, thrust—!
Rrrrrumble, krrrrash—.
A massive earthquake rolled across the world. After the aftershocks came a deep, earth-shaking roar. What it brought was pure destruction. When I finally pushed myself up, the Wall of Sloth had been ripped open and smashed in a way no one could have imagined.
“Th-the Wall of Sloth—”
“The impregnable iron fortress that stood five hundred years… has fallen…?”
“In-incredible…! Just as Moses’ staff parted the sea, Lord Rust’s staff has split the earth and the fortress clean in two! The citadel is broken in half!!!”
“Wooooooah—! We are living inside a myth right now!”
The Blood Crusade went wild. In that single moment they truly became hell-born heretics who no longer feared even death.
“Kwahahahaha! Did you see that?!”
History never changes! That arrogant, high-nosed wall was always destined to fall! Now that I had stripped away its outer garment, all that remained was to thrust deep inside!
“Th-this can’t be… the Goddess of the Earth has been defiled…”
Gaia, the Earth-Mother witch, looked utterly crushed and despairing. Of course she did—I had thoroughly violated and subjugated the very ground she worshipped right before her eyes!
A human, created by God to be the lord of all creation, worshipping mere nature that is nothing but a created thing? Absurd!
“Lady Gaia! What do we do?!”
“How many of the Goddess’s Wraths do we have left?!”
The witches were in complete disarray. I roared at them.
“Surrender! Every woman becomes this body’s sex slave! This body, Rust, accepts any woman without refusal!”
Heretics never get along with other heretics. Even in the twenty-first century, heretics hate each other. They’re all the same filthy trash, yet they still despise one another. Why? Because they’re fighting over the same rice bowl! Some cults even specialize in poaching believers from rival cults. Being trapped in a cult is already proof you’re an idiot—stealing idiots is easy!
“Come now! If you join today I’ll personally sign a first-edition copy of my holy scripture, the Gwichukdo! As a bonus I’ll slap each of you five times across the face!”
“Who would fall for that sugar-coated nonsense?!”
Gaia snapped back sharply. Between you and me, I always liked sharp-tongued women. A person needs that kind of backbone!
“S-sister—”
“I’m sorry! A signed first-edition of the Gwichukdo?! How am I supposed to resist that?!”
“Hurry, let’s go!”
“A man who impregnates the earth—I’ve never even heard of such a thing! The witch coven is fake! Rust is the real deal! Come on, girls! Let’s go!”
But the other witches had no backbone at all. Falling for a cult in the first place already meant you were spineless, so it wasn’t exactly surprising. A mass defection of witches followed.
“Anemone! You’re alive! I never imagined you’d already joined the Blood Crusade!”
“It’s Lord Rust’s grace! On the day of that witch trial I accepted Lord Rust as the master of everything I am! The only reason I’m still breathing is because of his mercy!”
The witches who had already been absorbed into the Blood Crusade welcomed the newcomers at once. They now wore red robes and became one beneath the red cross. Becoming one—that meant sex.
“Tr-traitors! Betrayal of the witch coven is punished by burning! All of you will burn at the stake!”
Gaia exploded with rage as she stared at the handful of witches still left at her side. Had her resentment finally shifted from me to her own traitorous sisters? What a stupid bitch.
“Sowing discord, betrayal, and factional fighting are not skills exclusive to women. Listen well, witches. Whoever succeeds in capturing Gaia alive will be promised the seat of the Sixth Baptized by this body, Rust, personally.”
That announcement shocked the Blood Crusade side even more.
“The Sixth Baptized?! I, Hans, the Second Baptized, can tell!!! Becoming a Baptized means you gain the right to offer Lord Rust the full tithe of every single copper you earn!!! And you get to read Lord Rust’s newest work before anyone else—what an incredible privilege!!!”
“You can offer every last coin you own?! Amazing! My Ascension rank is still so low I can only offer half my money to Lord Rust! Damn it, I want to offer everything already!”
“Reading the new work first!!! I want to be a Baptized too!!!”
Exactly. A once-in-a-lifetime chance to become a Baptized. Everyone wants a fancy hat on their head.
“Y-you all, stop it!”
“Sister! No—Gaia! Let’s just end this!”
“Pin her down so she can’t move! Steal the Goddess’s Wrath too!”
“Goddess’s Wrath my ass! It’s just burning powder! I was always sick of her strutting around just because she knows how to make a little powder! Was I the only one?”
“I felt the same!”
“Gyaaaah!”
Gaia was surrounded by the women. Knives in their hands stabbed her full of holes like a beehive; she bled torrents. Dead? I couldn’t let her die this time. Gaia was a talent who knew how to mix saltpeter, charcoal, and sulfur into gunpowder. Even if she had to die eventually, I needed to extract everything useful first and bring her under control—
“Lord Rust, danger!”
Someone shouted. Whoooosh—.
I turned my head just as something fierce came flying straight at my face.
Thwack—!
A heavy impact and a loud crack. “Ugh!” I toppled over. When I came to, I realized I had been hit by a rock. If I hadn’t been wearing the mask I might have blacked out completely.
“Rust! I can no longer stand by and watch your tyranny! I will defeat you, capture you, and then retire from the Seven Knights!”
Psyche. I saw her charging toward me on horseback. She must have been the one who threw the stone!
Crrrack—.
That was when the real problem started. A sound like something splitting open.
“Everyone look! Lord Rust’s mask is cracking!”
“No! According to the Gwichukdo, Lord Rust’s mask is the final wall that holds back his instincts! If the mask is removed or broken, the world itself will truly end! We’ll all be sentenced to death by Lord Rust! I, Hans, can tell!”
“Hiiiii! The Demon King’s mask is shattering! Lord Rust’s seal is breaking! The world is doomed!!!!”
Crrack, crrrack—.
The iron mask was fracturing and crumbling! If this continued my true face would be exposed to everyone! Then Psyche, already riding to capture me, might simply cut my head clean off! That was exactly what would happen!
“Lord Rust, leave this place to us! Hurry and devour the earth!”
“Give your lives to stop that madwoman Psyche!”
“Uwaaah! This woman is too strong!”
Psyche, still mounted, swung a greatsword and sent people flying left and right. I decided to run for it and get away from her! I already knew exactly where to flee—straight into the collapsed Citadel of Sloth!
“I go now to judge the slothful! The rest of you, disperse for today!”
The citadel, shattered by the earthquake, was pure pandemonium inside. Soldiers lay dead everywhere; some places still burned, others had been torn apart by explosions.
“Brutal. That quake really was strong.”
No matter how high a wall humans pile up, one good rumble from the earth brings it down. Human will can never stop the will of God.
“All dead, are they.”
Slick—.
I tossed the mask and robe into a burning pile of rubble. The existence known as Rust was gone from the world. Only I, Hyde, remained.
Step, step—.
I walked deeper into the citadel.
“S-save me…”
The still-living begged in agony. Their bodies were pinned under heavy chunks of wall; there was nothing I could do for them.
“Did I not tell you to surrender?”
This wall had taken a hundred years to build, or so they said, and another five hundred years of reinforcement. It took less than five minutes to fall. Why had humans spent twenty years defending something that would vanish so emptily? Human life is the same. Compared with the eternal hellfire or salvation that comes after death, a human life is only a fleeting instant. And for the sake of enjoying that fleeting instant, humans commit every kind of sin.
“I am Hyde, a bronze-rank priest. Do you require prayer?”
I asked the dying soldier. From the navel down he was crushed under rubble; honestly, he had no chance of surviving. Offering prayer to those dying before your eyes is the duty of a devout priest. And my dream remained unchanged: to become a priest more faithful and devout than anyone else.
“…Uh…”
The soldier tried to say something, then the strength left him. Hundreds of such beings filled this fortress. Because every soldier had been standing atop the wall, the earthquake had sent them plummeting, crushing and tearing them apart. So much was the same as before. Of course, last time the Agarpe soldiers had not been waiting outside the citadel.
Whose fault was it that these soldiers died? I decided it was the fault of their lazy, indolent commander.
“Agiles isn’t dead.”
The Great Sin Seat of Sloth had not died in this earthquake either. I knew that well. He had fled somewhere else and lived comfortably right up until the fall of the capital.
I was picking my way over broken rubble and corpses deeper into the citadel when a voice called out.
“You there! Is someone there?! H-help me move this rock!”
I turned. A man so fat he looked ready to burst lay on the floor staring up at me. His face was buried under a thick, bushy beard that made him look exactly like a blacksmith dwarf from a movie. A huge, flat slab of stone covered him like a blanket.
“Move the rock! It’s too heavy! The rock is too heavy!”
The Great Sin Seat of Sloth. Former Platinum Knight of the royal house, Agiles. This was the first time I had ever seen the man this close. Tears and snot streamed down his face; he was a thoroughly pathetic human being.
“Are you Agiles? The citadel has completely collapsed. Outside, the soldiers of Agarpe territory will finish mopping up any moment now. They’ll be storming in here soon enough. You’re about the only one left alive.”
“So what am I supposed to do about that?! Just get this rock off me already! I can’t breathe! I’m dying! You’re a priest, aren’t you?! A priest is supposed to save the lives of good people!”
“…….”
So this idiot fatso was the same man who, five years ago, had stood atop the wall pouring shit-water and curses down on me? That really pissed me off.
“Agarpe soldiers will be here any second. Then you, Great Sin Seat of Sloth, will become a prisoner of Agarpe territory.”
One of the Seven Great Sin Seats, called living demons. And I, Hyde the bronze-rank priest, had captured one of them!
“Heh heh heh… Sir Parmas is going to be very pleased.”